Penn State Football
Maryland Postgame Press Conference (Head Coach Mike Locksley and Players)
vs. Maryland – November 12, 2022
Mike Locksley | Maryland Head Coach
Q: Opening Statement
A: "Give credit to Penn State, obviously today, we did not play in any phase up to the standard that we have for ourselves. I told our team now isn't the time to panic but it is time that we, starting with myself, take a deep look at everything we're doing on offense, on defense, on special teams, and find a way to get us back on the right track. I have no problem with the way that we prepared. I do have a problem with the way we executed. And again, we got to take a hard look and it starts with me inside. Now's not the time to panic we still got two games left, we're still in a great situation, but it's really time to take a hard look inside to make sure that we're playing the right guys. We need to make sure we're doing the right things in all three phases and get it fixed and get us back on the right track."
Q: What goes into the deep look into the team? In terms of Talia where do you think he's been the last two weeks?
A: "Personnel scheme players who are on the field who's not on the field, every aspect of what we're calling and how we're calling it. It's always easy to say the quarterback because he has the ball in his hand, but I think it takes the players around him. It takes calling things that we can get executed, so for me to sit here and say where he is. I think he's just like the rest of us on the offensive side of the ball. We haven't played very well we haven't executed nor gone out and did the things that I've seen in practice is not showing up in games."
Q: Defense looked like it was a miss today, what happened there?
A: "I didn't see a lot of missed alignments, I saw a lot of missed tackles. Obviously, the thing on defense is recognizing formations and getting lined up. I thought we had opportunities on a couple of the big runs they had where we didn't make the play. And that's where again, when I talk about taking a deep dive, it's all the things that entails going about playing good football and winning football."
Q: Where is the offense not executing?
A: "I mean it goes back to execution, and then when you say that as a coach automatically you think players but no, it's not just players, it's everybody that's involved with our offense and I'm involved on a day-to-day basis with it but we do need to look at schematically, are we doing things that we're able to do with the personnel we have? Do we have the right guys on the field? Are we dotting the "i's" and crossing the "t's" on the offensive side. There were times and opportunities out there early on and we didn't get the ball where it should have been, and we didn't make enough plays."
Beau Brade | DB | Jr.
Q: Early on, Penn State, especially on the run. What do you think has been happening these last two weeks as you guys have struggled against the run, and what do you think has changed?
A: It's just execution and [our] focus during games. We work on it all throughout practice throughout the week, and it just comes up to showing and executing when the game comes.
Q: Do you remember what happened on those fourth-down touchdown runs?
A: You know, it's fourth down, everyone is in the box on both sides, and there is a wide-open gap. The quarterback cut up field, we're making some arm tackles, and then he's gone, but yeah, we just got to do our job.
Roman Hemby | RB | RS Fr.
Q: When you guys get back in the locker room at halftime, your team has less than 10 yards rushing. What do you do as running backs and just as an offense? What does that discussion like?
A: Oh, you know, we just got to do our part. Obviously, 10 rushing yards isn't what we're looking for, but we know the plays we needed to make were there. We're sort of one block away, you know, one step away, one cut away, and we wanted to moralize that at the time. We knew we still had a chance, you know, down the stretch, we made some plays, but we weren't able to make the plays that mattered the most.
Q: Today is one of the lows, how do you remain optimistic, looking into these next three games for the rest of the season?
A: You know, we got ebbs and flows in the season. It's never going to be exactly how we want it to go. We had our days where we were definitely clicking, and we have days where we aren't really clicking. That's the great thing about football really. When you have a bad day, you got another day to get back right and get back on the right side of things. So, for us as an offense, and as the Maryland Terrapins as a unit, we got three opportunities, and we're gonna make something happen. So, getting back to work, working Monday through Friday trying to get back on the right side.